


Warning: wet paint

by Keenir



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't look like a beast.  You look like someone dumped a bucket of wet paint on you, and didn't care how it dried."</p><p>...In which Emma learns that the words we use, tend to be founded in comparisons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warning: wet paint

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crysania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crysania/gifts).



> Crossposted to: [here, at the Rumple-Belle comm in LJ](http://rumpel-belle.livejournal.com/291090.html).

"You're staring, dearie."

"Sorry," Emma said, and her feet didn't want to walk away. Not before she got an answer...and when a recent attack by something nebulous and airborne had stripped away a layer of 'concealing magic' as Regina called it, Mr. Gold now looked like he'd lost a die-dye contest.

"No, you're not." _Not yet, certainly._ "As your captain and your king both can attest, your actions qualify as unwise to say the least."

"Nobody ever accused me of wisdom," Emma said to - _To Gold? Yeah, I can see where the name came from, particularly if Regina wasn't in the mood that day to be ironic or sarcastic. You give names to every single person from a fable, and you eventually start repeating yourself._

"Henry did," Gold said, and while it didn't sound as quiet and humbled as if he'd cited Neal as the expert, it was more than most people got.

Emma nodded, though she wasn't sure if the rocking of the boat just now - _funny, Killian, really a laugh riot_ \- hid the gesture. "And Henry told me that in his book, you're a beast." _No real pictures of you - if you're in a scene, you're all blurry and with a strange quality to it. Makes sense, once I knew who made the book. Would've made more sense if Neal had written the book, though._

"And I am."

"No."

He muttered something that could have been a "Not you too."

"No, you're more like somebody dumped a bucket of paint on you, and didn't care how poorly it dried." Far too easy to hear Killian laughing uproariously at that, as was - _What do I call him? Dad? Your Majesty? Charming? No, no way am I calling my dad THAT. David, yeah, that'll go well._

There was a look on Gold's - on Rumplestiltskin's face, an amusement reaching from eyes to cheek to a mouth whose lips didn't quirk up or down but still conveyed a delight in what was about to be done. With a flourish, he one-handedly gestured to one side of him, and David Nolan appeared and looked more annoyed at having been relocated than anything else. "Behold, the noble sheep-herder," Rumplestiltskin pronounced. "Peasant-born and battle-hardened. And with no more blemish or dirt to his face than when I pulled him from the stocks. Nor any scarring from then or later."

"What're you doing?" David asked him.

"Why, simply answering your daughter's question as to why everyone of our world, considers me what they do."

A look of 'oh crap not again' panic spread across David's face, and he turned to look at Emma, "Emma, you don't want to do this."

 _Yeah, like that ever convinces me,_ she thought.

Rumplestiltskin sent David back to where he'd been just before being summoned to here, and said "Or consider your good friend Ella of the cinders, the very embodiment of blunt force labor in the world we came from. Or think back upon Regina's youth, spending more time in a stable than did her beau who worked in it."

"There a point to all this fond flashbacking?" Emma asked.

"Oh quite," Rumplestiltskin said. "Prior to your meeting with Henry, I would wager you did not picture dwarves and giants to look quite so unassuming as you found them to."

Emma nodded; _that's true._

"In all their land and mine, only one other thinking being looked any different from them - the deadly Siren. Now, with that in mind, and knowing when magic and good genes combine to give everyone such rugged good looks and soft tenderness of frame, _then_ look upon me."

"Badly-dried paint," Emma repeated, then conceded, "...in a society where nobody else gets painted," _and has anyone in Storybrooke used makeup before? I swear, that section of the town's store and pharmacy had the most dust on it..._ "This is why nobody could believe their eyes when they saw you in town with Belle?" _Not sure why Dr. Whale was the least surprised, though._

"Got it in one," Rumplestiltskin said, with a chipper note of what may've been pride. "Now, I believe your mother is calling for us all to attend meal. And you don't want to disobey your mother, now do you?"

And Emma had a feeling he'd just dropped a hint about what Emma might have to do, soon or eventually...and then she thought _And was he doing that through the explanation he just gave?_ And noticed that Gold and Rumplestiltskin by any name, was already gone.


End file.
